The history of drinking

Uncorking the past

Recreating old drinks provides an enjoyable form of time-travelling

IT MAY be small—each molecule is less than a billionth of a metre long, and consists of a handful of atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen—but ethyl alcohol makes an excellent time machine. People have enjoyed alcoholic drinks since prehistoric times, making drinking one of the few strands that runs throughout the history of western civilisation. Appreciating the art, music or literature of long-vanished cultures can require years of study; recreating their drinks, and comparing them to what we enjoy today, is simple in comparison, not to mention more fun. The consumption of alcohol is so widespread in history, says Patrick McGovern, an archaeological chemist at the University of Pennsylvania, that drinking is, in effect, “a universal language”.

At the same time, of course, different cultures' attitudes to alcohol provide a window on a wide range of social and cultural practices. Alcoholic drinks have always been prized for their supposedly medicinal qualities, though exactly what these qualities were, and how best to take advantage of them, has only become clear in modern times. In short, the drinks of history are familiar enough that we can understand and appreciate them, while different enough to teach us something about the time and place in which they were originally drunk. Some of them can even be recreated at home, with commonly available ingredients.

The oldest surviving recipe in the world (3,800 years old) is for beer. It formed part of a hymn to the Sumerian goddess of brewing

The oldest surviving recipe in the world is for beer. It can be found on a 3,800-year-old clay tablet, as part of a hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of brewing. Sumerian documents, including the legal code drawn up during the reign of King Hammurabi around 1720BC, show that beer played an important role in Mesopotamian rituals, myths and medical practices. It was drunk by all members of society, from top to bottom, and tavern keepers were expected to abide by strict rules: the penalty for overcharging, for example, was drowning.

In addition to being at the heart of Mesopotamian culture, beer may even have been the foundation for the whole of western civilization. In the 1950s Jonathan Sauer, an American botanist, suggested that the original motivation for domesticating cereal crops (and thus switching from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle) might have been to make beer, rather than bread. The question of whether beer or bread came first has been debated ever since.

Beer makers of Sumer

Supporters of Sauer's idea have pointed out that many of the first cereals to be farmed were unsuitable for baking without tiresome preparation, but were suitable for brewing. Beer, they suggest, may have emerged in an attempt to make wild barley edible by mixing it with water and fruit. The thick beer produced in this way would be just as nutritious as bread, in addition to being slightly alcoholic.

Sumerian documents lend credence to this idea. For although Sumerian beer was made using bappir, a form of bread that could be stored for long periods, it seems that bappir was consumed only when no other food was available. In other words, its primary function may have been to store the raw materials for making beer in a convenient form.

If beer really does underpin western civilisation, that would explain its high status in Sumerian culture. The seal of Lady Pu-Abi, queen of the city of Ur around 2600BC, shows her drinking beer from a cup through a straw; just such a straw, made of gold and lapis lazuli, was found in her tomb, and can be seen today in the British Museum.

So what would this Ur-beer have tasted like? A number of attempts have been made to brew Sumerian beer according to the Ninkasi recipe. Two such tipples were made in the early 1990s at the Anchor Brewery in San Francisco, though they were not put on sale to the general public. They involved a certain amount of guesswork. One problem, says Michael Jackson, a beer expert who has tasted various pseudo-Sumerian beers over the years, is that modern brewers avoid the use of wild yeast, which would have made the original beers taste “winey and sour”. Another problem, he says, is that it is not clear what was added to ancient beers to balance the taste of the grain. It may well have been fruit, but could also have been honey.

This means there are various modern beers that may resemble the ancient kind. Mr Jackson notes that lambic beers from Belgium use wild yeast, for example; he also recommends Sahti, a Finnish beer that is flavoured with juniper, which he describes as “the last primitive beer to survive in Europe”. Philip Rogers, of the Anchor Brewing Company, says that the Ninkasi brew he tasted was reminiscent of mead; another beer, also based on the Ninkasi recipe, has been compared to Jade, a French organic beer.

To further complicate matters, says Mr McGovern, the distinction between beer, wine and mead starts to break down once honey and fruit are included in the brewing process. Furthermore, his analysis of drinking vessels, found in a tomb in central Turkey dating to around 700BC and thought to be that of King Midas, suggests that beer, wine and mead may have been mixed together in equal quantities to make an early form of cocktail.

A similar drink seems to have been adopted by the Minoan civilization of Crete after about 1500BC. Mr McGovern is currently collaborating with a Cretan wine maker to recreate this drink: six different blends of wine, spices, mead and beer are brewing at this very moment. His findings have also been used by Sam Calagione of the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Lewes, Delaware, to create a beer called “Midas Touch”, which was launched in June (see www.dogfish.com for details).

Galen's wine: Rome, c. 170AD

Some time towards the end of the second century AD, Galen of Pergamum, physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, descended into the Palatine cellars in Rome and conducted what must be regarded as one of the greatest vertical wine-tastings in history. Before his appointment as imperial physician, Galen had been a doctor at a gladiatorial school, where he had learned of the medical value of wine to disinfect wounds. Galen also believed that wine was an extremely potent medicine. So when it came to preparing a theriac, or medicinal potion for the emperor, Galen decided that it should be based on the finest wine in the world. “Since all that is best from every part of the earth finds its way to the great ones of the earth,” he wrote, “from their excellence must be chosen the very best for the greatest of them all.” He duly headed for the cellars.

In Roman times, it was universally agreed that the finest wine was that of the Falernian region near Naples. In fact, in a foreshadowing of the French appellation regulations, there were three types of Falernian wine. Caucinian Falernian originated from vineyards on the highest slopes of Mount Falernus; Faustian Falernian came from vineyards on the central slopes; and wine from the lower slopes was known simply as Falernian.

Perhaps surprisingly, given modern tastes, the most prized Falernian was a white wine. Roman sources indicate that the grapes were picked fairly late, resulting in a heavy, sweet wine that was golden in colour and could be aged for decades. The nearest contemporary equivalents would appear to be long-aged sauternes wines, such as Chateau d'Yquem. But Falernian would have tasted very different, for a number of reasons. For a start, it was allowed to maderise, which caused it to turn amber or brown. A modern drinker presented with a glass of Roman wine might also notice that its taste was affected by the pitch or resin that was used to make impermeable the earthenware jars in which the wine was stored.

But the most dramatic difference between Roman and modern wine is that the Romans never drank wine on its own; they always mixed it with other ingredients. Indeed, the practice of drinking wine straight was regarded as barbaric. Most often, wine was simply diluted. The amount of water added depended on the circumstances (it was up to the host to decide) and the temperature, but the proportions were typically one part wine to three parts water. Diluting wine served two purposes: it made it into a thirst-quenching drink that could be consumed in large quantities, and the presence of alcohol also made the water safe to drink, an important consideration in the growing cities of the Roman Empire, as it still was in 18th-century Europe.

On occasion, wine was diluted with seawater. This was done, according to Pliny, “to enliven the wine's smoothness”

On occasion, wine was also diluted with seawater. According to Pliny the Elder, one of several Roman authorities on wine, this was done “to enliven the wine's smoothness”. But water was not the only additive. Snow was sometimes mixed with wine to cool it; honey was sometimes added to create an aperitif known as mulsum; and various herbs and spices were commonly added to wine to mask the fact that it had turned to vinegar. Keeping wine in good condition was difficult in Roman times, so most wine was drunk within a year of production; “old” wine was categorised as wine more than a year old.

As a wine-lover, Galen must have relished the prospect of searching the imperial cellars for the finest Falernian. He started with 20-year-old Falernian and then tasted earlier and earlier vintages. “I kept on until I found a wine without a trace of bitterness. An ancient wine which has not lost its sweetness is the best of all.” Eventually, Galen settled on a Faustian Falernian as the finest wine in existence. Alas, he did not record the year. Earlier in the Roman period, the general consensus had been that the Falernian of 121BC was the best vintage; according to Pliny, this wine was still being drunk 160 years later, when it was offered to Caligula. So it seems likely that Galen would have had Falernian vintages as much as 200 years old available during his tasting session.

But while Falernian was the finest Roman wine, it was hardly typical of what Romans like Galen drank every day. How can such wines be recreated? Hervé Durand, a French wine maker, has set up a “Roman vineyard” near Nîmes in the south of France, where he follows the wine-making procedures described by Roman writers as closely as possible. He produces three pseudo-Roman wines: Turriculae, a white wine that is lightly flavoured with salt water; Carenum, a spiced red wine; and Mulsum, which is flavoured with honey. Similarly, several wine makers in Italy make wines that trade on the Roman connection. But they are not designed to be diluted or mixed with honey and they are not full of herbs. In other words, they are quite palatable, and thus, alas, not authentic.

According to Jerry Paterson, an expert on Roman wine at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England, the contemporary wines that are most similar to Roman wines are young, sweet white wines, such as those made in Germany or around the French town of Vouvray. The nearest red wine, he suggests, is Italian wine made with the Aglianico grape. Add half a cup of honey to a bottle of white wine, and refrigerate, to make mulsum; or simply add water in order to drink wine, Roman style.

Shakespeare's sack: England, 1598

On the afternoon of April 19th, 1587, Sir Francis Drake led his convoy of 31 ships into the port of Cadiz, where the Spanish navy was being prepared to invade England. The Spanish were taken completely by surprise, and Drake's men quickly looted, sank or burnt every ship in sight. After clearing the harbour of stores and fending off a Spanish attack, Drake and his ships escaped without the loss of a single man. Back in England, Drake became a national hero, and his daring attack became known as the “singeing of the King of Spain's beard”.

BridgemanWedding guests by the sackful

As well as setting back the Spanish plan to invade England by several months, Drake's daring attack sealed the success of a popular new drink. For among the stores that he plundered from Cadiz were 2,900 large barrels of sack, a wine made in the Jerez region of Spain, and the forerunner of today's sherry. Its popularity stemmed from a law, passed in 1491, that wines made for export should be exempt from taxes. (The name sack is derived from the Spanish word sacar, meaning to take out, or export.) The wine makers of Jerez looked for overseas markets, and sack started to take off in England. In 1587, the celebratory drinking of the sack brought back from Cadiz by Drake gave it a further boost and made it hugely fashionable, notwithstanding its Spanish origin.

For obscure chemical reasons, sack was an unusually long-lasting and robust wine. This made it ideal for taking on long sea voyages, during which alcoholic drinks acted as a vital social lubricant that lessened the hardship of spending weeks packed into a cramped ship. Columbus took sack with him to the new world in the 1490s, making it the first wine to be introduced into the Americas. When Magellan set out to circumnavigate the world in 1519 he spent more on sack than he did on weapons.

But it was in England that sack was most popular. By far the most famous tribute to it was written by William Shakespeare in 1598. In “Henry IV, Part 2”, Falstaff sings its praises in a long speech and concludes: “If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.” This was, of course, an anachronism: the play was set long before sack was introduced to England. But it is tempting to conclude that Falstaff's words reflect Shakespeare's own love of sack, which was widely shared. His fellow playwrights Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe also wrote hymns to sack; Marlowe was probably drinking it on the night he was killed in a tavern brawl.

In 1604, sack was granted official recognition of sorts when James I issued an ordinance limiting its consumption at court. “We considering that oftentimes sundry of our nobility and others, dieted and lodged in our Court, may for their better health desire to have Sacke, our pleasure is that there be allowed to the sergeant of our cellar twelve gallons of Sacke a day, and no more.” By this time sack was popularly known as sherris-sack (sherris being a corruption of Jerez), which eventually became the modern word sherry.

Sack was still popular in the late 17th century, and appears frequently in the diary of Samuel Pepys. On the morning of March 5th 1668, Pepys was summoned to Westminster to defend the Navy Office's practice of paying sailors with negotiable bills instead of money. On the way he decided to fortify himself: “to comfort myself did go to the Dog and drink half-a-pint of mulled sack”. Pepys also refers several times to “sack-posset”, a medicinal brew of sack, sugar, spices, milk and beaten eggs that was traditionally served at weddings in early colonial America.

What did sack taste like, and can its taste be experienced today? For many years it was believed that sack derived its name from seco, meaning dry, and that it was therefore a dry wine. But according to Julian Jeffs, an expert on the history of sherry, this is wrong, and sack was actually sweet. It was not aged for more than a year or two, unlike modern sherry, which is usually aged for at least three years. This suggests, says Mr Jeffs, that sack probably tasted quite similar to a cheap, young oloroso sherry. It was often further sweetened with honey or sugar: hence Falstaff's nickname of “Sir John Sack-and-sugar”.

A glass from the past

Recreating the drinks of the past is an intellectual challenge, says Mr McGovern. It is an inexact science, and the results can be horrible. “But once you've created something that's tasty and delicious, it's like you've brought the past back to life,” he says. “It makes it much more real for people—it isn't just something forever buried.” Better still, in addition to recreating a tiny aspect of the past, there is now strong scientific evidence that alcohol, taken in moderation, can help you travel forward in time too, by reducing the risk of heart disease by as much as 40%. Cheers!